Prison Escape Blues
by Tori Sakana
Summary: Sequel to Execution Blues, but can be read on its own. After their near miss with a firing squad, the boys must now fight their way out of the prison. The only problem is, there doesn't seem to be an exit...


Author: Tori Sakana  
  
Summary: Sequel to Execution Blues, but can be read on its own. After their near miss with a firing squad, the boys must now fight their way out of the prison. The only problem is, there doesn't seem to be an exit...  
  
Warnings: some swearing, light violence, property damage   
Pairings: none. Suitable for het and yaoi fans alike. I aim to please ^_^  
  
Side note: You don't need to read Execution Blues to understand this, but it helps with some details. More action-oriented than the original and less dark humor, but I hope you guys still enjoy the sequel too!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of its characters or plot or anything.   
  
thoughts  
  
Now, on to the fic!  
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Prison Escape Blues  
****  
  
Corners are dangerous things.  
  
They slow you down when you're running. Trip you up when you're not looking. Hurt a lot when you run into them. Confuse you when there're too many. But most importantly...  
  
You can't see around them.  
  
  
  
A Gundam pilot deals with corners in a variety of ways. Sometimes, the gun turns the corner first and whatever unfortunate person or thing that's around that corner gets blown away. Sometimes, the eyes go first, cautiously checking for surveillance. And other times, all the parts go at once, especially when said pilot is in a hurry.   
  
  
  
Heero ran through these various strategies in his mind while waiting around a particularly dangerous corner. None seemed particularly useful at this point, either.  
  
The five pilots had split up, taking as many different routes from their almost-gravesite as possible. Their situation: one handgun each, single clip; one dislocated and reset left thumb each; absolutely no knowledge of the prison base; alarm sirens blaring constantly; and their infallible and well-honed skills as the most feared rebels in space.  
  
They had of course gotten hopelessly lost.  
  
  
  
Heero had already passed the same point three times, running into guards every time. He had come to the conclusion that the base was arranged in a circle. The simple way out of the circle is straight out from the center. None of the hallways ran that way. After ten minutes of frustration, he took up a position in a tiny maintenance hallway to figure out a solution.  
  
He had also passed several of the others along his way. He and Wufei had both started out with the gun-first attitude to corners, until they ended up nose-to-barrel with each other. Trowa was taking the stealthy approach, mainly because he was out of ammo. Heero had seen the acrobat pilot of 03 disappear like a ghost down a corridor several times before they ended up face to face. Quatre was sticking his head out first, and had so far avoided getting it shot off. But he had been forced to kill an uncomfortable number of guards, and had also noticed that there seemed to be no exit.   
  
Trowa had pointed out that it was likely the exit was hidden or otherwise disguised, and the four had split up again to search, taking organized routes this time.   
  
Duo was just plain lost.  
  
  
  
"Man! These corridors go on forever! Doesn't this place have an exit? It's like a maze in a carnival!" Duo complained as he stalked catlike through the base. No exit signs, no natural light, no obvious entrance. The place was as flat and featureless as the circular world of the colonies. Wherever you start, that's where you end up.  
  
An unwary guard turned the corner. Duo cold-cocked him with the butt of his gun.   
  
"No point in wasting bullets on you, is there buddy?" He said conversationally to the unconscious soldier. "Now, let's just have a look in your pockets..."  
  
Half a minute later and 3 clips richer, he set off again down the hallway.  
  
"Only thing left now is to find a way out of this insane asylum."  
  
  
  
Quatre made the same connection as Duo, that the circular hallways were much like the colony cities in layout. The idea nagged at him.  
  
He cautious poked his head around another corner, and spotted Wufei feeling the walls for a secret entrance.   
  
"Need me to watch your back?"  
  
Wufei nodded without taking his eyes off the wall.  
  
Quatre took up sentry position, scanning both ends of the corridor in an attempt to watch both Wufei's back and his own.   
  
"I think we're looking in the wrong place." Wufei said, standing up with an irritated look on his face. "It must be closer to the cells."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"When we arrived, they took us from the truck to the cells fairly quickly. No waiting as we wandered this idiotic maze. So the entrance must be near the prisoner quarters."  
  
"That's right!" Quatre nodded in enthusiasm. "If I remember correctly, the cells are this way."   
  
"You kept your sense of direction in here?"  
  
"Um, yeah. It's kinda weird, but it reminds me of the way L4 was laid out. You grew up in a colony; wasn't yours arranged in a circle like this?"  
  
Wufei paused to shoot a few guards carefully. He checked his ammo; half a clip left. "You're right. Do you think it's deliberate? And how's your ammo?"  
  
"A clip and a half. I think it might be, I can't imagine what other purpose it would serve."  
  
"To confuse escaping prisoners, no doubt."  
  
Quatre held down his laughter as they turned another corner.  
  
  
  
Heero and Trowa were already there when they reached the prison wing. Both were slightly bloodied, but there was no way to know if it was their own. Neither was about to show that sort of weakness, not now.   
  
The prison block was mostly empty, luckily. The guards had apparently decided that no sane escaping prisoner goes back to his cell.   
  
Sanity was not a defining characteristic of a Gundam pilot.  
  
Backs against the wall, they watched the corners as Quatre explained his and Wufei's assessment.  
  
Heero nodded. "Makes sense. So, if this place is based on the colonies, where would the exit be?"  
  
"Probably the center," said Trowa. "That's the docking point of the colonies."  
  
"But that's because of the zero g! On Earth, how would you put the exit in the center? It doesn't seem logistically possible." Quatre pointed out.   
  
A pause, filled only by shouts, shots, and alarms.  
  
Wufei suddenly spun to face the other pilots. "Wait! This place is designed to confuse prisoners, right?"  
  
"Very probably," stated Heero.  
  
"And most prisoners here are executed immediately, correct?"  
  
Quatre pushed off from the wall. Following Wufei's train of thought, he added excitedly, "And where is the last place a prisoner to be executed would look for the exit?"  
  
The four pilots looked at each other, then in unison shouted the answer and started running.  
  
"Behind the firing squad wall!"  
  
  
  
The courtyard was filled with guards. Most surrounded the wall the pilots had stood against, awaiting their deaths no more than a half hour before. There were no open paths around or behind them.  
  
The four boys stopped around a corner to watch and wait.  
  
"Ammo status?" Heero demanded shortly.   
  
"Clip and a half."  
  
"A half."  
  
"None."  
  
They turned to look at Trowa, who shrugged. "Habit."  
  
"That's not enough. There's at least two dozen guards, and we're not going to hit on every shot." Heero ran through as dozen battle scenarios in his head. "We can't make a direct attack."  
  
"What we need is Duo! We could distract them long enough for him to sneak past and get the door open from behind." Quatre thought quickly. "It might just work."  
  
"Just one problem." said Wufei flatly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"No Duo."  
  
Quatre groaned. "I bet he got lost. He's never had a great sense of direction, even when he could see the sky."  
  
Heero restrained the unprofessional impulse to bang his head against the wall. "He is such an idiot."  
  
  
  
Duo banged his head against the wall. "I am such an idiot."  
  
It had seemed like such a good idea at the time: bypass the irritatingly circular hallways by taking the direct short cut route through the ventilation shafts.  
  
It would've been a great plan.   
  
Except for one thing.  
  
The shafts were also arranged in a circle.  
  
Duo banged his head against the wall again. "Great. Not only am I lost and wandering around in circles, but now I'm lost in a tiny little corridor about two feet wide, two feet high, and a thousand feet long! If I ever find my way out of this one, I'm buying a compass at the next pawn shop we pass."  
  
To make matters worse, he couldn't seem to find any more access hatches besides the one he had used to get up into the shaft, and that one was now guarded. So he was stuck.  
  
Well, nothing for it but to keep moving. Staying in one place wasn't going to make him any less lost, and it would make him hungrier. To reinforce this point, his stomach growled loudly. The sound echoed through the ventilation shafts disconcertingly. Duo held his breath; hopefully no one had heard.   
  
How humiliating, to be caught by your own stomach.  
  
  
  
Heero looked up sharply. "Sshh!"  
  
"What?" Quatre asked, glancing around.   
  
"Did you hear something?"  
  
The others shook their heads.  
  
"It came from above. Something strange is going on." He held his gun parallel to his face and scanned the ceiling suspiciously.  
  
  
  
Duo cocked his head. He thought he'd heard voices from somewhere up ahead. If he didn't know better, he'd think they were the other pilots...He decided he'd better go check it out.  
  
Still, it could just be more guards, so it was necessary to proceed with caution. With a painful slowness, Duo inched his way forward through the ventilation shaft. Breathing softly, trying to minimize each sound, he crept closer and closer to the source of the voices.  
  
After an agonizing few minutes, he saw a grate ahead of him on the floor of the shaft. Light was streaming through it, and he could hear faint echoes coming from that direction. The voices weren't clear enough to identify yet. Duo cursed. At this range, they would probably hear his movements long before he figured out whether they were friends or foes.  
  
As if to prove him right, the voices stopped suddenly.  
  
Unwilling to just sit and wait to be discovered, Duo resumed his cautious forward motion. Nothing happened. He reached the edge of the grating. Still nothing happened. He placed both hands on the grate and leaned out over it, trying to see below.   
  
Then something totally unexpected happened.  
  
  
  
Heero made a quick hand gesture and the other pilots immediately held their breath and stopped moving, trying to be as quiet as possible. One of the Perfect Soldier's many unmatchable talents was an amazingly keen sense of hearing, so they didn't doubt that he could hear something that was out of their range.  
  
But Quatre had to wonder, just what were they afraid of? Did they think that armed guards were about to fall from the sky?  
  
At that instant the grating in the ceiling above Quatre and Wufei's heads gave way and a black blur dropped like a stone on top of them, landing with a thump and a squawk.  
  
  
  
Duo shook his head to clear his vision, and ended up looking down the barrel of Heero's stolen handgun. He grinned rather sheepishly, and heard Heero pull back the hammer.  
  
"Hey, hey, sorry, I was trying to escape through the ventilation shafts when I heard you guys, and just decided to, he he, drop in..."  
  
He was silenced by a punch in the back.  
  
"Get off me, you great idiot!" snarled Wufei.   
  
"You are definitely heavier than you look, Duo," grumbled Quatre.  
  
"Whoa! Sorry guys, didn't mean to squash ya." Duo leapt to his feet and offered his hands to his friends. Wufei ignored him and got to his feet in a dignified if slightly miffed manner. Quatre took Duo's hand and pulled himself up, then stood to the side, dusting off his filthy pink shirt and khakis.  
  
Heero grunted and lowered his gun. "Where have you been?"  
  
Duo opened his mouth to answer, but Trowa cut him off. "Problem."  
  
And then they heard the shouts from across the courtyard.  
  
Every single one of the two dozen guards were pointing at the Gundam pilots and shouting variations of "There they are! Get them!"  
  
"Oh shit." Duo sighed.  
  
  
  
The five boy terrorists turned tail and ran. The soldiers made the fatal mistake of following them.  
  
About ten yards down the hallway, the corridor split into three. One branch went left, one right, and one straight ahead.   
  
Trowa and Quatre went left, Heero and Wufei went right, and Duo pelted full speed straight down the hallway.  
  
Most of the guards followed Duo. The few who didn't ran into the other boys instead and didn't have time to regret it. At the far end of the hallway, Duo could be heard shouting obscenities and taunting his pursuers. Considering the odds, this was probably not the brightest idea the God of Death had ever had, so his fellow pilots elected to remedy the situation by taking pot shots at the distant guards. After picking off a good half-dozen, Heero and the others turned their attention back to the courtyard, confident that Duo would eventually dispatch the rest of the guards and rendezvous with them later. If he ever found his way back.  
  
  
  
Duo found it hard to believe that his situation could ever be worse than it had been a few minutes before, when he had been stuck in the ventilation shaft. But he had to admit, running from a dozen armed guards down circular hallways heading god knows where was definitely worse.  
  
"I hope Heero finds the exit quick!" he gasped out as he ran. "I can't take much more of this!"  
  
He didn't dare look behind him to see how many were following him. After all, if he was already running as fast as he could, it wouldn't matter what he saw behind him. So he just ran blindly until his lungs felt like they were on fire and the cut on his chest burned.  
  
Suddenly it occurred to him that the guards had guns. So why weren't they shooting at him? It was a clear shot, even a moron could have hit him at this distance, and it certainly would be simpler than chasing him.   
  
Apparently the same thought occurred to his pursuers as gunshots began to ring out around him. Duo cursed and tried to run even faster. Bullets whistled past his ears and thudded into the steel floor just in front of him.  
  
"Crap, crap, crap!" he shouted. "Can't you guys give me a break?" This sucks! Not only am I lost, but I'm tired and getting shot at! Well, I'm sick of it! I'm gonna show them not to mess with the God of Death!  
  
Pulling his stolen gun from his waistband, Duo stopped short and spun around, emptying a clip at the guards before they even realized what was happening. He took off again while the guards were still frozen in shock. He prayed with all his strength as he hunted for his second clip that he would find it and reload before the chaos behind him was resolved.  
  
He heard pounding feet behind him and suddenly the air was thick with bullets. Oops, I think I made them mad. Oh well, may as well give it another shot... Taking a deep breath, he stopped and spun around again, hoping to catch them with the same trick.   
  
But this time they were ready for him.  
  
Even as Duo raised his gun, he saw the glint of metal as half a dozen barrels were leveled with his chest.   
  
DAMN!!  
  
He twisted sideways spinning on his heel and felt the first round of bullets whiz past him. But the twist pushed him off balance and he tumbled backwards. Instead of fighting the motion, he rolled with it and crashed through a door he hadn't even known was there. Not one to miss a chance, he kicked it shut behind him, leapt to his feet and locked it. After a moment, he heard angry shouts and thuds as his pursuers tried to break down the door. But for the moment, it held.  
  
Duo let out his breath in a long sigh.  
  
Then grinned.  
  
"Whoo hoo! Yet another successful escape for the great Shinigami! Take that, you stupid goons!" Duo stuck his tongue out at the unyielding door. Apparently, the 'stupid goons' heard him, because the shouts from the other side of the barrier were louder and considerably more obscene.  
  
Safe for the moment, Duo turned his attention to his new surroundings. A dark room, filled with computer screens, which upon closer inspection turned out to be video feeds from security cameras all over the prison.  
  
"Jackpot." Duo smirked.  
  
  
  
"So how do we open it?" Quatre frowned at the seamless brick wall.  
  
"There must be a switch somewhere." Heero inspected the wall closely, looking for any tiny inconsistencies or protrusions.  
  
"I don't think the exit is here. We must have misjudged." Wufei stood back with arms folded. "We should try looking somewhere else."  
  
Trowa stared in silence at the wall for a long minute. "It opens."  
  
The others looked at him in surprise.   
  
"How could you tell?" Quatre asked.  
  
The tall Gundam pilot gestured to the ground in front of the wall. "The dust tracks. The dirt is swept clear in this area, but nowhere else in the courtyard. Just like the area in front of a door is smoothed out."  
  
"Oh."  
  
A long silence.  
  
"So how do we open it?"  
  
  
  
Duo fiddled with the computers idly while the shouting continued outside. On the monitors, he could see his comrades messing about with the firing squad wall. It was sort of funny; he couldn't see their lips, but he could tell exactly what was going on. Wufei was being the devil's advocate, Heero was looking for the door, Trowa was observing it all, and Quatre was at a loss. Duo couldn't help but smile at his friends' antics.  
  
"It looks like they know where the door is, but they can't open it," he mused. The other pilots were now feeling around a specific area of the wall, as if looking for a hidden switch. "Wonder if the switch is really out there. It makes more sense for the door to be remote-controlled, especially in such a prominent place..."  
  
A thought struck him hard.   
  
"What if the switch is in this room?"  
  
He hopped out of his seat and began scanning the panels of the room, hunting for anything that looked like it would open the door.   
  
Payoff came in the form of a large set of switches labeled "Egress Controls." Duo reasoned that each switch worked one of the secure doors in the complex. It would be a simple matter to find the one for the way out.  
  
If the switches weren't labeled by number.  
  
Duo cursed and started looking for a map. After a few minutes of fruitless search, he sighed and resigned himself to guessing.   
  
"Let's see, it's probably going to be either the first one or the last one, since it's the most important door in the building." He thought out loud to himself. "So...which one?"  
  
He stared at switches '1' and '37'.  
  
He kept staring.  
  
"How should I know which one it is?" He sighed in exasperation.  
  
The only thing left was to resort to the time-honored military tradition for such difficult situations.  
  
"Eenie, meenie, minie, mo..."  
  
  
  
Heero stepped back from the wall and frowned. He and the others had been over every inch of the suspected door area, and had found naught. He ran his hand through his messy brown bangs in irritation.  
  
Wufei had already given up and was concentrating on watching the doorways for guards. Trowa was still staring impassively at the wall deep in thought. Quatre was sitting on the ground despondently.  
  
"I wonder where Duo is," the little blond thought aloud.  
  
Heero grunted. "Lost again, I bet."  
  
"No doubt." Wufei added with a snort.  
  
Trowa was still looking at the wall. Suddenly, he took a couple of long strides forward to stop just in front of it. "I think something's happening."  
  
Three heads swiveled to look at the wall.  
  
To their shock, the wall soundlessly slid aside, revealing a staircase leading down to darkness.  
  
And escape.  
  
  
  
Duo whooped. "Found it! Oh yeah, I rock!"  
  
He did a little victory dance that stopped abruptly at the slight shushing sound.  
  
His eyes widened with horror as he saw the door to his safe haven slide quietly open.  
  
Shit! Must've hit the wrong switch after all!!  
  
He had just enough time to dive behind one of the computer panels when the gunfire erupted.  
  
  
  
"Why did it open like that?" Wufei stared at the door suspiciously.  
  
Trowa shrugged. "Does it matter? It's open."  
  
"This is it?" Quatre peered into the darkness with a frown. "Why's it so dark?"  
  
"There aren't any lights." Heero stated blandly and earned himself a glare.  
  
"I mean, why does it look like the entrance to a basement or a dungeon out of a horror movie? Why not steel and bright lights like the rest of this place? It doesn't make sense."  
  
Sticking his head inside the doorway, Heero glanced around quickly before turning back to the others. "It goes to an underground passage, beneath the prison. That's why the prison itself appears to be a featureless circle. As for the darkness, there doesn't seem to be any electrical equipment inside. Not even a computer-controlled opener."  
  
"Perhaps to prevent escape during a power outage?" Quatre hazarded a guess.  
  
"No matter. We can feel our way if we must." Wufei started forward towards the opening, but Heero stuck out an arm blocking his path.  
  
"What's the problem, Yuy? The exit opened."   
  
Quatre shook his head. "Duo's not here. We can't leave him behind."  
  
Heero nodded in agreement. "We have to look for him. He'll be a security risk if he's caught again."  
  
Yeah right. thought Quatre with a smirk. Keep telling yourself that, Heero. You might even believe it. I know you'd never leave behind a teammate.  
  
"So what now? If we go looking for him, the exit might close. Besides, if he's lost we could be searching from now till nightfall and not find him." Wufei pointed out, still playing devil's advocate.  
  
It was Trowa who offered a solution. "Two of us can guard the exit, while the other two hunt for Duo."  
  
"Fine. Quatre, come with me. Wufei, you and Trowa keep that door open, no matter what." Without waiting for responses, Heero took off across the courtyard, with Quatre hot on his heels.  
  
Wufei plunked down to sit in the dust and glared after them. "Why do they get to have all the fun?"  
  
  
  
Why do these things always happen to me?  
  
Duo squinched his eyes shut and pulled his knees tighter to his chest. The computer bank he was hidden behind was starting to hiss and spark as the constant rain of gunfire ate away at the fragile electrical components.   
  
If this thing blows, I'm done for! I gotta get out of here! But that was impossible, the remaining group of guards was determined to kill him or die trying.  
  
They were angry. He'd taken out more than half of them already, and they wanted blood. Angry enemies are careless, but much more dangerous because they won't accept defeat.  
  
A spark crackled next to his ear and Duo hunched down further. It's time for an all or nothing. I can't get out of here at this rate, not with all this shooting. But I escaped my own execution an hour ago, and I'll be damned if I'm going to die like a cornered rat now!  
  
Steel-edged determination flashed in his eyes. Duo's Shinigami mask took over, the part of him that looked death in the eye and not only laughed, but welcomed it. All traces of humor gone, he checked his ammo. Two full clips, but without a clear shot that might not be enough to take out all his attackers.  
  
Shinigami calculated the odds. Ten to one, two clips. I can make it.  
  
If every part of this plan went right, he would make it out alive.  
  
It was a big if.  
  
  
  
Ignoring the continuing deadly rain, Duo slunk catlike to the corner of the computer bank. There was a gap of about a foot, then another computer bank ran perpendicular to it. If he could make it across the gap unnoticed, he could sneak around behind the guards and take them by surprise.  
  
Like a shadow in the night, he slipped across the gap, just a darker shade of black against the darkness. The gunfire continued unabated; he was safe.  
  
Each step as careful and gentle as the brush of a feather, Duo moved down the room. It suddenly seemed so much farther. He paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes.  
  
After an eternity, he darted across another gap to take shelter behind a flimsy wooden desk. It wouldn't hold against a serious onslaught, but with any luck it wouldn't have to.  
  
This is it. Do or die. Though, I would definitely prefer the 'do' option. Duo gathered up his determination like a shield, took a deep breath, and stood up.  
  
"Hey, jerks! I'm over here!"  
  
In one panicked moment, the remaining guards turned to face him, Duo raised his own gun in response, and the overheated and abused computer exploded.  
  
  
  
The floor shook under Heero and Quatre as they raced through the base. A dull rumbling roar echoed in their ears and seemed to vibrate their very bones.  
  
"What was that?" Quatre stopped in confusion.  
  
"An explosion. This way." Heero kept running through the circular maze of hallways. That had to have been Duo. Only he could blow up a prison without any explosives....The question is, was it on purpose?  
  
The two pilots skidded to a halt as they rounded a corner and came face to face with a thick cloud of smoke. It was drifting from a doorway far down the corridor. It was too dark to see anything through the grey blankness.  
  
Gradually, the haze thinned, revealing a dark shape advancing slowly. Quatre and Heero's expressions hardened, and Quatre raised his gun and clicked off the safety. Out of ammo, Heero moved into a crouch, ready to leap.  
  
The figure in the fog suddenly stopped and leaned over. The boys tensed, until they heard the fit of coughing alternated with American cursing.   
  
"F--*cough*--ing smoke...*cough cough*...damn *cough* computers... *cough* damn doors..."  
  
Quatre lowered the gun and sighed in relief. "Duo..."  
  
The aforementioned black-clad pilot stumbled out into the open and wiped his face on his sleeve. Still coughing, eyes watering from the stinging smoke, Duo blinked at his comrades.  
  
"Guys? What're you doing here?"  
  
"We heard the explosion." Heero answered dryly.  
  
A muffled "oh" was all Duo managed before falling flat on his face.  
  
  
  
The other two stared at Duo's prone form for a long moment. He didn't look damaged, just singed and exhausted. Quatre looked up and met Heero's eyes.  
  
"You carry him."  
  
One brown eyebrow lifted. "Me?"  
  
"You're stronger, plus I'm the one with a gun."  
  
Heero opened his mouth as if to point out that he could very easily take the gun while Quatre carried their idiotic friend, but one look from the blond convinced him it would be wiser not to argue. Scowling, he bent and lifted the braided boy onto his back, shifting to settle him into a reasonably comfortable position. He straightened and leveled a glare at Quatre, promising revenge.  
  
Quatre smiled sweetly, cocked his gun, and strode off down the corridor. Heero followed, expression stoic except for a tiny neurotic twitch at the corner of his eye.  
  
  
  
Wufei scowled as he watched the entrances to the courtyard from his position on the ground. Heero and Quatre were due back any minute, but that wasn't what bothered him.  
  
The base was quiet...too quiet. True, most of the guards had been taken out in their earlier escapades, and if the rumbling he had heard earlier had been what he thought it was, a considerable number had been eliminated by Duo. But Wufei refused to believe that they had managed to take out all the guards at a prison base such as this. So despite his calm and slightly annoyed appearance, he was on edge and nervous. From Trowa's pacing, the other boy was far from at ease as well.  
  
Sounds from one corridor drew his attention and he tensed, gun poised to fire.  
  
Wufei leapt to his feet as the trio raced into the courtyard. "There they are!"  
  
Trowa spun around to see Heero carrying Duo like a sack of potatoes with Quatre covering their backs.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
Quatre gasped out the answer without slowing. "We're fine, but the guards are on their way!"  
  
As if on cue, the door they had come through suddenly spilled what looked like the remainder of the base's soldiers out into the courtyard.   
  
Wufei and Quatre immediately leveled their weapons and emptied their clips at the guards to buy their friends time while Trowa helped Heero haul Duo into the darkened passageway to freedom.   
  
Bullets licked past them as the guards returned fire. Quatre didn't even flinch when one cut a trail across his cheek. He concentrated all his attention on holding back the enemy while his friends escaped. He didn't even notice when the other three reached safety and kept firing until Wufei grabbed his arm.   
  
With one parting shot, he turned and ran.  
  
The dirt under their feet kicked up into clouds as the gunfire chased the pair across the courtyard. With one last adrenalin-charged leap, Wufei and Quatre sprang across the threshold and half-fell down the staircase into the passage.  
  
Once they were in, Heero threw a switch and the door slammed down between the pilots and their pursuers. He yanked again strongly, and the switch broke off, jamming the mechanism.  
  
Silence and darkness fell.  
  
  
  
The only thing they could hear was the sound of their own rapid breathing, and the only thing they could see was a faint glimmer shining off their eyes from an unknown source. Eventually, a dull pounding was barely audible through the door, but it was built to stand against anything short of a bomb.  
  
"owwww....my head...." Duo groaned.  
  
Seeing that the other boy was awake, Heero unceremoniously dumped him on the ground.  
  
Quatre leaned over him in concern. "Duo? Are you okay?"  
  
"No...I can't see..."  
  
"That's because there aren't any lights." Wufei snorted.  
  
"Oh. Good."   
  
They heard shuffling as their companion got to his feet. "So where are we?"  
  
"The corridor to the outside."  
The other pilots couldn't see him, but they could feel his grin even in the darkness. "So we made it?"  
  
"Yes." Quatre beamed.  
  
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Former exhaustion forgotten, Duo let out a whoop and raced off into the total darkness. "Let's get out of here!"  
  
"Wait, DUO!" Quatre called after him, then followed him at a slightly slower pace.  
  
Wufei, Trowa, and Heero exchanged a look.   
  
At a more sedate pace, the three headed after the more enthusiastic members of their team. Counting on yelps from Duo or Quatre to warn them of any invisible obstacles, the boys walked in silence for some time.  
  
In the darkness, with no one there to see, three small smiles of triumph touched the lips of the serious teenage soldiers.  
  
A whisper from Heero put words to the inexplicable lightening in all their hearts.  
  
"Mission Accomplished."  
  
  
  
******************~The End~********************  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
A lot (okay, a few) people asked me about writing a sequel to Execution Blues, and boy was I surprised. It took me forever to write this, which irks me since the original only took a week. This one took a summer. Grrr. And I still like the first one better.  
  
So, what'd you guys think? Better? Worse? The same? Less dark humor and more action, I know, but it suited the subject better...  
  
REVIEW PLEASE! Reviews make me write faster, and in this case even made me write a sequel! So if you like, let me know! *shameless plea for attention*   
  
Anyway, thanks for reading! Ja ne! 


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